Before the trophies, before the victories, before the championship and before his name became one of the most recognisable in Formula 1, there was a young driver sitting in a McLaren.

Not the McLaren of today.

This was a team still searching for itself.

The years of dominance were long gone. The partnership with Honda had collapsed, the team was working through the difficult Renault years and the cars were more often fighting for points than victories. McLaren was rebuilding, and in 2019 it decided to put part of that rebuild in the hands of a teenager.

The decision would eventually change both the driver and the team.

But the story actually began long before Formula 1.

From a Bambino Kart to the World Stage

Like many great racing drivers, the beginning was simple: a child, a kart and an obsession with going faster.

He started racing properly at seven years old. His first karting years eventually developed into something much more serious, and by his early teens he was already competing successfully at international level.

In 2014, at just 14, he became the youngest winner of the CIK-FIA KF World Championship at the time. It was an early indication that this was not simply another talented youngster moving through the karting ranks.

The results kept coming.

In 2016, he won the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup, the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup and the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand. That same period earned him the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award.

McLaren was watching.

And it wasn’t just watching the results.

Why McLaren Chose Him

In modern Formula 1, speed is only part of the equation.

A young driver has to convince a team that he can understand a car, communicate with engineers, handle pressure and improve without destroying expensive machinery.

McLaren saw those qualities early.

In 2017, the teenager joined the McLaren Young Driver Programme. That year he won the European Formula 3 Championship at his first attempt, producing 20 podiums from 30 races, including nine victories.

He was then given his first opportunity to drive a modern Formula 1 car during testing at the Hungaroring.

The progression was deliberate.

He wasn’t simply thrown into a race seat.

He became McLaren’s test and simulator driver for 2018, took part in Formula 1 testing and appeared in seven Friday practice sessions. Those appearances gave McLaren the opportunity to see how he performed with the pressure of an F1 weekend before committing to him as a full-time driver.

And then came another important piece of evidence.

Formula 2.

He finished runner-up in the 2018 championship, behind George Russell, giving McLaren even more reason to believe that the teenager was ready for the next step.

By September 2018, McLaren had made its decision.

The teenager would race alongside Carlos Sainz in 2019.

Entering Formula 1 at the Wrong Time?

There was an irony to his arrival.

The driver was ready.

The team wasn’t.

McLaren was still rebuilding.

The 2019 car was not a championship machine. There were no expectations that a 19-year-old rookie would suddenly challenge Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull for victories.

Instead, the objective was development.

Learn.

Survive.

Score points.

And grow with the team.

The rookie’s first season was considerably stronger than the circumstances suggested. He scored points in 11 races and narrowly missed finishing inside the top ten of the championship. More importantly, he actually edged his considerably more experienced teammate in qualifying head-to-head.

That was the beginning.

Not the glamorous beginning people remember today.

There were no championship celebrations.

There was no dominant McLaren.

There was simply a young driver learning how unforgiving Formula 1 could be.

The First Sign That Something Was Different

Then came 2020.

McLaren had made progress, but the world around Formula 1 had changed dramatically. The season was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and began months later than planned.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, the young McLaren driver qualified fourth.

On race day, he found himself fighting for a podium.

With five laps remaining, he was fifth. Then everything came together.

He passed Sergio Pérez and began chasing Lewis Hamilton, who was carrying a five-second penalty.

The rookie pushed to the limit, setting the fastest lap and closing the gap sufficiently to inherit third place.

His first Formula 1 podium.

It was more than a trophy.

It was evidence that the driver and McLaren were becoming something serious.

2021: The Win That Got Away

If 2020 introduced him to the podium, 2021 introduced him to the possibility of victory.

McLaren switched to Mercedes power, Daniel Ricciardo arrived as his new teammate and the young driver increasingly became the team’s leading performer.

He finished sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, collected multiple podiums and took his first Formula 1 pole position at the Russian Grand Prix.

Then came one of the most painful moments of his early career.

Sochi.

Rain was approaching.

He was leading.

Four laps remained.

The decision was whether to remain on slick tyres or pit for intermediates.

He stayed out.

The rain intensified.

The victory disappeared.

What followed became part of the mythology surrounding his career: the criticism, the accusations that he had thrown away his first win and the enormous pressure that came with being labelled the next great driver before he had actually won a Grand Prix.

But that race was important for another reason.

It showed that the driver was capable of putting a McLaren at the front on merit.

The car wasn’t supposed to dominate.

He simply had it there.

When McLaren Was Still Holding Him Back

Then came 2022.

McLaren slipped backwards.

The car was no longer regularly capable of fighting at the front, but the driver continued to extract results from it.

He finished seventh in the championship and scored a podium at Imola.

Then came 2023.

The beginning of the season was ugly.

The McLaren MCL60 was struggling badly. At the opening race in Bahrain, the team was nowhere near the front.

But McLaren found something.

An upgrade changed the trajectory of the season.

Suddenly, the car was competitive.

And the driver was ready.

He collected six second-place finishes and another third-place result during the remainder of the campaign.

The victories still weren’t coming.

That was becoming the defining question.

Was he genuinely a future champion?

Or was he simply an exceptionally talented driver trapped in a car that wasn’t good enough?

The Record Nobody Wants

By the start of 2024, something unusual had happened.

He had become one of Formula 1’s most consistent podium finishers without winning a Grand Prix.

Fourteen podiums without a victory.

That was a record he inherited from Nick Heidfeld.

And then, finally, the door opened.

Miami.

The McLaren was fast.

The strategy worked.

The safety car changed the race.

And suddenly the driver who had spent years finishing second, third and fourth was leading a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

He didn’t give the position back.

The first victory finally arrived.

It was not the product of one miraculous weekend.

It was the culmination of five years of development, mistakes, near misses and increasingly convincing performances.

And it was the moment that transformed the conversation.

The rookie was gone.

The potential was becoming reality.

The Achievements Before the Championship

Forget what happened in 2025 for a moment.

Before the championship, the résumé was already substantial.

He had won the FIA European Formula 3 Championship in his rookie season.

He had finished runner-up in Formula 2.

He had become a Formula 1 race driver at 19.

He had scored his first podium in only his second F1 season.

He had taken his first pole position in 2021.

He had finished sixth in the 2021 championship despite competing against drivers with considerably stronger machinery.

He had carried McLaren through difficult periods when the car was not capable of fighting at the front.

He had accumulated podium after podium without a victory.

And in 2024, he finally won.

Then he won again.

And again.

And again.

By the end of 2024, he had four Grand Prix victories and had become the principal challenger to Max Verstappen for the Drivers’ Championship. McLaren also secured its first Constructors’ Championship since 1998.

That is the part of the story that can easily be forgotten now.

Because history tends to compress careers.

It sees the champion.

It sees the trophies.

It sees the number beside the driver’s name.

It forgets the teenager who arrived at a struggling McLaren and spent years waiting for the machinery to catch up with his ability.

The driver who learned how to lose before he learned how to win.

The driver who watched victory disappear in Sochi.

The driver who finished second again and again.

The driver who stayed with McLaren while the team rebuilt itself around him.

And perhaps most importantly, the driver who was never supposed to arrive as a finished product.

He was supposed to grow with the team.

McLaren didn’t just choose a driver.

It chose a project.

And that project eventually became Lando Norris.